How communist Bulgaria became a leader in technology, robotics and sci-fi (2018)
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Re: How communist Bulgaria became a leader in technology, robotics and sci-fi (2018)
#2I wonder if Bulgaria really became leader in tech. In Czechoslovakia we also had some sort of computer industry. We also had state security agents buying western tech in disguise and importing it home for cloning.
I even know one guy who worked at computer reverse engineering institute back then. Also I have found memoirs of some random guy who worked as IT specialist for Stb (Czech equivalent of Stasi).
However, this article is really good introduction to Blugarian sci-fi which I didn't known before (unlike Polish and Soviet).
Re: How communist Bulgaria became a leader in technology, robotics and sci-fi (2018)
#3My first computer was a home computer from Bulgaria called Pravetz 8D. It’s amazing that it never occurred to me until now to look it up on the web and sure enough there is a Wikipedia page about them. If not for that thing, I wouldn’t be a software engineer today.
Re: How communist Bulgaria became a leader in technology, robotics and sci-fi (2018)
#4My first computer was a home computer from Bulgaria called Pravetz 8D. It’s amazing that it never occurred to me until now to look it up on the web and sure enough there is a Wikipedia page about them. If not for that thing, I wouldn’t be a software engineer today.
I remember that nightmare ... the software was recorded on tapes.
Re: How communist Bulgaria became a leader in technology, robotics and sci-fi (2018)
#5I wonder if Bulgaria really became leader in tech. In Czechoslovakia we also had some sort of computer industry. We also had state security agents buying western tech in disguise and importing it home for cloning. I even know one guy who worked at computer reverse engineering institute back then. Also I have found memoirs of some random guy who worked as IT specialist for Stb (Czech equivalent of Stasi). However, thi…
Interesting. Might you have any links or references to the memoirs you could share?
Re: How communist Bulgaria became a leader in technology, robotics and sci-fi (2018)
#6I wonder if Bulgaria really became leader in tech. In Czechoslovakia we also had some sort of computer industry. We also had state security agents buying western tech in disguise and importing it home for cloning. I even know one guy who worked at computer reverse engineering institute back then. Also I have found memoirs of some random guy who worked as IT specialist for Stb (Czech equivalent of Stasi). However, thi…
I remember in Red Plenty it describes how the USSR decided to just copy IBM machines rather than build their own at some point.
It's a shame as MSU was working on some really interesting stuff including the weird Setun ternary computer.
Re: How communist Bulgaria became a leader in technology, robotics and sci-fi (2018)
#7My first computer was a home computer from Bulgaria called Pravetz 8D. It’s amazing that it never occurred to me until now to look it up on the web and sure enough there is a Wikipedia page about them. If not for that thing, I wouldn’t be a software engineer today.
I remember that nightmare ... the software was recorded on tapes.
Just like a Commodore 64.
Re: How communist Bulgaria became a leader in technology, robotics and sci-fi (2018)
#8I wonder if Bulgaria really became leader in tech. In Czechoslovakia we also had some sort of computer industry. We also had state security agents buying western tech in disguise and importing it home for cloning. I even know one guy who worked at computer reverse engineering institute back then. Also I have found memoirs of some random guy who worked as IT specialist for Stb (Czech equivalent of Stasi). However, thi…
I remember in Red Plenty it describes how the USSR decided to just copy IBM machines rather than build their own at some point. It's a shame as MSU was working on some really interesting stuff including the weird Setun ternary computer.
Red Plenty is a fantastic and unusual book, I highly recommend it to everybody with even a cursory interest in mathematics, economics, logistics, information technology, politics, or history.
Re: How communist Bulgaria became a leader in technology, robotics and sci-fi (2018)
#9I wonder if Bulgaria really became leader in tech. In Czechoslovakia we also had some sort of computer industry. We also had state security agents buying western tech in disguise and importing it home for cloning. I even know one guy who worked at computer reverse engineering institute back then. Also I have found memoirs of some random guy who worked as IT specialist for Stb (Czech equivalent of Stasi). However, thi…
>At its peak, Bulgaria supplied 40% of the computers in COMECON. The electronics industry employed 300,000 workers, and it generated 8 billion rubles a year. [0]
That's on top of a population of just under 9 million and a working age population of 6 million [1], so 5% of the workforce was involved in the production of computer hardware alone.
It seems there was a very large bet on the computer industry from the communist party. Jumping around wikipedia [2] it also seems that pretty much all the computers were clones of western computers and several years behind the west in terms of technology.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_computer_hardware_i...
[1] https://www.populationpyramid.net/bulgaria/1985/
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_computer_hardware_i...
Re: How communist Bulgaria became a leader in technology, robotics and sci-fi (2018)
#10The author of the Cyberpunk Manifesto (1997), Christian As. Kirtchev, is also Bulgarian. He has a collection of Eastern European cyberpunk stories on Amazon (no idea how good they are) and is apparently active on Twitter too.
- http://project.cyberpunk.ru/idb/cyberpunk_manifesto.html
- https://www.amazon.com/Chemical-Illusions-Anthology-Cyberpun...